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Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Chicago Designers [Icon Modern] 1 of 5

In previous blogs I have featured many wonderful Chicago designers, but I don’t feel like I’d given them enough credit. Every designer is spectacular and deserves their own personal feature about the company and their designs/products. Therefore this week I’m trying something new…one blog featuring one designer/company. Generally I post once a week (for the most part), but since I have 5 designers to cover (and they’re too good to wait a week for) I’ll release a new one each day…starting today. Please welcome Icon Modern!!!

Icon Modern

Made in Chicago. They offer well-constructed, meant-to-last products that are unique in character. All the wood is locally sourced & salvaged and it's breathtaking! Um, hello Ohio Buck-eye Slab table. They feature tables in the form of blocks, twigs, and slabs; but they also offer custom pieces.

Modern Twig Table

Facet Table

Modern Twig Table

Twig Tables

X Base Table

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Color for Fall

Ultramarine Green...One of Pantone's chosen colors for Fall and one of my favorites no matter what time of year. It has shown up on the Fall/Winter runways and has carried over into home decor. The nice thing is these products fit a range of budgets.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Material Selection

An Important process to design, besides color selection, is your choice of materials.

The advantage of choosing to use innovative materials discourages the likelihood of knockoffs. Below are a few companies that offer unique materials.

Designers looking for the latest in material innovation...a membership at Material ConneXion is worth the fee. Here are a couple examples from the site:

Hand carved and blasted glass with applied rust finish. It can be supplied on flat or formed textured glass.

Liquid Concrete based Veneer.

The look of concrete without the weight that can be brushed, rolled, or sprayed on various surfaces.

Horigan Urban Forest, Inc.

They produce high quality urban lumber from the Chicago area urban forest, a sustainable resource. When trees need to be removed, they will mill and kiln dry them.

Lucem Lichtbeton

Lit Concrete

Ambro Door | Panels | Tables

Made of genuine hardwood and translucent resin.

Available in several finishes, patterns and colors.

Torzo Surfaces

The Tiikeri Series is made from recycled and rapidly renewable sorghum straw.

Vertical Grass

LuxCore comes in translucent panels, laminates, and laminates suitable for back-lighting.

It can be used for most vertical and horizontal applications.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Chicago Modern Home Tour

The modern home tour consisted of 9 residences across the Chicago area in a 7 hour time span. I was able to see 7 of them. This was such a fun experience. If you were unable to attend or unaware of the event I highly recommend taking the tour next year. I must say, out of them all, the Mohawk house made the most impression on me (esp. the staircase with the chainmail curtain) but the 1625 Wolcott had the best rooftop views of the city.

1856 N. Mohawk St. | Chicago | 60614

Architect: Lohan Anderson

Built 2008; 5-bedroom, 6-bath, 8700 square feet